


Resuscitate

by strikit



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, ambiguous descriptions of violence, hurt/betrayal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 07:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13312938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikit/pseuds/strikit
Summary: Over the chaos Angela heard a voice–husky, angry, shouting in Gaeilge. Her heart sank and nausea rose up in her throat all at once.“No.”She swallowed hard, grimacing through the sudden realization. She wanted to believe that it could be anyone, that it wasn’t her. But she would know that voice–and that tone of disdain–anywhere.That meant Moira had weaponized Angela’s lifesaving technology. And, worse, it meant that at the end of the day she may well have to step over the body of her once-lover.





	Resuscitate

**Author's Note:**

> I'm neck deep in Moicy hell.

Gunfire peppered the streets. Angela dove for cover behind a building, her heart pounding in her chest. It was not her own safety for which she feared; her team would be the ones running headlong into danger with little more than the promise of her tether to keep them alive. These were not nameless, faceless soldiers. These were her friends, colleagues. After the Recall there were only so many of them left--only so many to address the growing terroristic threat.

The order came to move. Angela stayed close and low, ever at the ready to pump someone full of nanobiotics. Regardless of the mission, no matter who she rubbed shoulders with, the prime directive was to heal. Fortunately no injuries had as of yet occurred, but that didn’t mean she was willing to relax. That could change at any moment.

Staccato machine gunfire came from somewhere to the right. Angela whirled around, staff at the ready, golden light already enveloping those that were hit. No fatalities, thankfully; resurrection was still in its trial stages, in truth not even ready yet to be deployed on the battlefield. The offenders retreated, finding safety on the other side of a building.

It would be a firefight. Angela steeled herself for the carnage that would surely follow. She had never truly gotten used to the bloodshed, but in moments like these she thought of little else but protection. With her to fix the beam of her Caduceus Staff on any in need the damage was minimal. This couldn’t last much longer, she thought as she saw a direct hit to the side of one of the aggressors. The man fell, there was a flash of gold, and before long he had clambored to his feet to rejoin the fight.

Angela narrowed her eyes and inched as close to the edge as she dared.

“They have nano,” she relayed to her team over the comm. Her teeth ground around the words; to have her own technology used against her team was infuriating. “Don’t rely on wounds to take them down.”

A chorus of ‘affirmative’ sounded around her. It would be alright, she assured herself, it would be fine.

A pulsating sphere of purple light floated in their direction. Shouts of confusion heralded its arrival, followed by grunts of pain as it sent out tethers of light to those it passed. Angela ducked away from it, not quite fast enough to escape a sudden wave of pain--like a limb losing its blood supply.

It had not been horrible enough to cause any serious damage, but it had caused enough confusion for the Talon assailants to regroup and push forward. It didn’t make any sense; Angela’s mind whirled to figure out what it had been, and where it had come from.

*****

The fight drug on, but in time the Overwatch team managed to push back toward the warehouse they intended to take. The bodies of Talon operatives lay here and there along the sidewalk. The fatalities suffered by Overwatch had been quickly erased, reversed with the strenuous use of technology that should not even be out of the lab yet. Even so, as the first man rose to fight another day, fear and gratitude in his eyes, she thought it might be worth the risk.

Soon the Talon operatives had their backs to the warehouse. If they were clever they would retreat to save their hides. Each time a man fell with non-life threatening injuries there was a flash of light--sometimes a golden orb much like the unfriendly one--and he would be up again. Each time Angela lost focus in the wake of her anger.

*****

Still longer the fight ran. Angela was beyond weary, exhausted by the constant dance from person to person to boost them up. Over the chaos she heard a voice--husky, angry, shouting in Gaeilge. Her heart sank and nausea rose up in her throat all at once.

“No.”

She swallowed hard and grimaced through the sudden realization. She wanted to believe that it could be anyone, that it wasn’t her. But she would know that voice--and that tone of disdain--anywhere.

That meant Moira had weaponized Angela’s lifesaving technology. And, worse, it meant that at the end of the day she may well have to step over the body of her once-lover.

*****

‘Eliminated the medic.’

The information came over the comm to an echo of pleased, triumphant grunts. Angela only felt numb.

*****

The mission was a success. The few remaining Talon operatives had fled, leaving their fallen fellows behind. The Overwatch team did a thorough sweep of the warehouse and surrounding areas before declaring the area clear. Angela strove to keep her eyes on her team but almost without her permission they occasionally swept the ground around them for a familiar flash of red hair. She didn’t want to see. She couldn’t stand to see. But she needed to, she needed the closure. Even now, knowing that Moira would have likely taken her life if given the chance, her heart ached.

*****

The team had spread out to clear the area, and it seemed that wherever Moira had fallen was not in the area Angela’s group patrolled. She wasn’t sure if she was glad for the fact. The commander called for transport and until their lift out of there arrived, there was nothing to do but wait.

Angela lasted only a minute before she stepped carefully behind a stack of boxes, then slipped away as quietly as she could. The comm line was still live; she would hear if she was missing the transport. In the moment she couldn’t care much anyway. The urge, the compulsion, to find her was too much.

The search lasted longer than she had expected. Angela peered around corners, in the alleys outside the building, behind beams, and did not find her. Panic gripped her lungs in a vicegrip, restricting her breathing and causing her heart to flutter pathetically. She shouldn’t be doing this, she should go back, she should--

She glanced swiftly into a room that appeared to be an office and stopped in her tracks. On the dirty concrete floor lay Moira’s body, arms and legs sticking out at odd angles, looking so much like a marionette with the strings cut from above it. Tears pricked at Angela’s eyes.

Now that she was here she couldn’t stand the open communications channel. Angela switched it off, knowing it would alert her team. She didn’t have long.

“This didn’t have to happen.”

Her voice was little more than a thick whisper. Angela stepped into the room reluctantly, as though afraid of disturbing her. She dropped to her knees and found the gunshot to the neck that had killed her old friend. Her breath hitched; Moira had always been so proud, so arrogant, so sure. It had likely been those very traits that were her undoing. Those clever eyes stared, unseeing, glazed, unknowing.

“I’m sorry.”

She was. Angela rested on her knees, eyes downturned. Though her eyes burned tears did not quite fall. She had to hold it together, at least for now. At least until they returned to base. Then she could lose it.

God, they’d had some good years together. It seemed that each time their gazes met heat crackled between them. They were one another’s greatest adversary in the lab, most cunning conversational opponent, and after a time, fiercest lover. Her shaking hand rested on Moira’s chest. Even through her clothes Angela could feel how cold she was, how still.

Fuck. She couldn’t.

She had to.

Angela choked back her grief and stood. The technology had not been tested after so long post mortem; but if ever there was a person to convince her to conduct reckless testing it was the woman on the cold floor below her. Just as a precaution she collapsed her Caduceus Staff and slotted it into the holster, instead drawing her Blaster. This was risky. This was stupid. She shouldn’t do it. It would, beyond a doubt, come back to bite her in the ass later--and possibly take some lives.

She stepped back, giving herself some space to fight, and hovered her hand over Moira’s chest. The pull of energy was huge, much greater than a more recent death. Angela tensed through it and shuddered when the nanos discharged. Golden light enveloped Moira’s body and then faded as quickly as it had appeared. She waited, panting, watching for any sign of life.

Nothing.

The silence drug on too long. The Blaster shook in Angela’s grip, her vision blurring. Then, a cough.

The body of the geneticist gave a great twitch. A deep, wheezing breath, pulling air into recently dead lungs. Color returned to her lips first, then blossomed over her cheeks as blood rushed through her body once more. Moira choked around another deep cough. There was no ferocity, no superiority in her heterochromatic eyes; there was only fear. Unfocused, they settled on Angela and then widened in understanding.

“Can you hear me?”

Moira rasped an affirmative and made to sit up. Angela brought her heel down on her ex-lover’s throat, keeping her down and threatening to cut off the breath she had only just restored. Fire burned behind her eyes--ire born of betrayal and of recent grief, dampened none by the wetness that still lingered.

“Stay down and listen carefully. If we meet again I will show you no mercy. If I see you on the field I will fill you with lead. Never again will I extend this kindness to you. You are nothing to me.”

She ground her heel against the spot where a bullet hole had been less than a minute before. Moira winced but lay still, drawing in what breath she could.

“Don’t lie to yourself, angel. If I’m nothing, why not leave me dead?”

Angela grimaced and stepped back with one great shove. “Don’t test me. I can put you down again just as easily as I brought you back.”

She holstered her Blaster and turned to go, casting one last glance over her shoulder. “Lay low until we’ve left. I don’t care how you explain it to your edgy little friends, but don’t mention me. If you ever breathe a word to anyone there will be nowhere you can hide.”

Before Moira could say anything, before she could change her mind, Angela left her in the dirty office. She only just made it for transport. When asked of her absence she answered simply, “I thought I heard something, but it was only a rat.”


End file.
